Roller Derby Update 1/22/14

From recruiting wranglers to world cups, start filling your schedule

See that fancy new calendar you've got on your wall? See all those empty dates? Yeah, get ready to fill them all up. The 2014 Roller Derby season is just getting ready to start, and it kicks off with an amazing opportunity for non-skaters tonight.

Flat Track

Texas Rollergirls

Think you've got the energy to jump from superfan to crowd wrangler? The league is looking for new blood to get the crowd hoopin' and hollerin'. Auditions are tonight, Jan. 22, 8-9:30pm at the Blood Shed (6110 Trade Center Drive, Ste. 101B) All ages, sizes and genders welcome. Miniskirts and chainsaws not provided.

The league wil also be holding a bootcamp Jan. 31-Feb. 2 at the Blood Shed, with coaches including Polly Gone, Olivia Shootin’ John, Barbara Ambush, and Fifi Nomenon running the practices. Registration is $150 per skater, $59 per spectator, and you can sigh up online now.

And, of course, the 2014 season is just around the corner. Here's the full schedule:

Feb. 22: season opener
March 22
April 19
May 10
June 14: Texecutioners travel team home bout
July 13: Playoffs
August 16: Championship bout

All bouts are double headers and are held on Saturdays (except the July bout, which is a Sunday) at the Austin Convention Center, 500 E. Cesar Chavez. Tickets and season passes available now.

Texas Rollergirls Rec League

The league's entry level training and scrimmage division will be running its first practice session of the year, running Feb. 4 to May 5, at the Blood Shed. The sessions will be run for four levels of experience:

Registration covers the whole session: For primer, B and C is $175 for two practices a week or $87.50 for one a week, while group A is $200 for two a week.

Austin Anarchy Men's Roller Derby

Austin's first men's league enters its second calendar year by looking for coaches and trainers. After a surprisingly narrow 228-192 loss to the Houston Roller Derby Coed team last December, they are hoping to become more competitive in the growing men's side of the sport. More details at www.facebook.com/ATXDerby, and you can pick up merch at their Squareup store.

Rockin' City Rollergirls

The Round Rock league, founded in 2012, has already set its travel schedule for the year:

All bouts are the the Palmer Events Center, 900 Barton Springs Road. Season passes and tickets for all bouts available now

Beyond Austin

Women's Flat Track Derby Association

More dates for your calendar, with the announcement of the 2014 tournament season schedule and locations. For those of you thinking about a trip to the great white north, this year sees the first every WFTDA tournament outside of the US, with a division 2 event in Canada.

Roller derby's leading print publication, Blood and Thunder, has selected Dallas as the location of the second ever world cup, running December 4-7 at Fair Park in the Dallas Fairground. The road to the cup starts Feb. 21-23 with the Cen-Tex Stars & Stripes Invitational, featuring Assassination City, the Cen-Tex Sirens out of Temple, Dallas Derby Devils, and Albuquerque, New Mexico's Duke City Derby, at the Coliseum, on the State Fairground of Texas, in Dallas. More details at www.rollerderbyworldcup.com, and tickets for the invitational and the tournament are available now. There'll also be a coed boot camp the weekend of the invitational, Feb. 21-22: Registration is open now.

If you need even more incentive to head North for the tournament weekend, how's this: Three Texas Rollergirls – Fifi Nomenon, Polly Gone and Smarty Pants – have all made the Team USA roster.